1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for searching for musical pieces, to a method of searching for musical pieces, and to a recording medium therewith. More particularly, the present invention relates to a musical piece search system for selecting, from information containing a multiplicity of musical pieces, a musical piece which a user cannot remember or does not know, and for presenting the musical piece searched for to the user, and also relates to a musical piece search method for performing such a process, and to a computer-readable recording medium therewith.
2. Description of the Related Art
For identification of a tune or guessing the name of a musical piece, as in a quiz, enormous memory, advanced capabilities of association and judgement and so on, such as are possible only in human brains, have been required.
Recently, with the reduction in the price of music software and with the diversification of people""s tastes in music, the number of musical pieces remaining in people""s memory or available in industry has increased steadily. Under these circumstances, a person may have a feeling of being frustrated if he or she cannot remember the name of a song he or she wants to sing using a karaoke system, and may feel it is difficult to select a musical piece for the purposes of diversion of mind or advertisement. In view of this problem, technicians have set the identification of a musical piece as an object of study.
In particular, musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) techniques, with which certain uses for computers in the field of music have been specified, have come into wide use in the karaoke industry to supply, or communicate, music data (referred to as communication karoke, hereinafter) to karoke enthusiasts, as well as to enable karaoke systems to be used in various ways. Many music search techniques suitable for karoke systems have recently been reported.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2-54300 (xe2x80x9cAutomatic Music Selecting Apparatusxe2x80x9d) discloses a technique for selecting a karaoke piece by melody. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publications Nos. 3-12890 and 3-12891 also disclose similar techniques. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 5-61927 (xe2x80x9cMusic Data Base Search System and Melody Matching Method Using Melody Informationxe2x80x9d) discloses a technique with consideration of errors in placement, omissions, extraneous musical notes, etc., presented by a user.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 7-121556 (xe2x80x9cMusic Information Searching Apparatusxe2x80x9d) discloses a technique with consideration of the fact that users do not always input melodies in scales based on an absolute pitch.
On the other hand, over time, new techniques have appeared for music search, accompanying the advancement in technology and the popularization of the above-mentioned communication karaoke based on MIDI techniques. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 8-129393 (xe2x80x9cKaraoke Apparatusxe2x80x9d) discloses a technique of performing communication karaoke music selection immediately from a voice input by using a MIDI technique. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 8-160975 (xe2x80x9cKaraoke Music Selecting Apparatusxe2x80x9d) discloses a technique intended to increase the music selection hit rate by using the relative lengths or proportions of melody, rhythm, lyric lines, etc., as factors. Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 9-138691 (xe2x80x9cMusical Piece Searching Apparatusxe2x80x9d) discloses a technique of using the pitch and the length of notes as factors.
Needless to say, essentials of these musical search techniques may be applied to other uses. Practically speaking, however, they are mainly intended for karaoke. There has also been made a noteworthy technical disclosure in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2-202621 (xe2x80x9cMusical Piece Searching Apparatus Using Musical Performance Informationxe2x80x9d), describing a musical piece searching apparatus capable of searching for a musical piece through musical information not on melody but on instrumental formation, rhythmical sense, etc. In this publication, the reason for use of information on instrumental formation, rhythmical sense, etc. instead of melody information is explained by saying xe2x80x9cMelody is thought to be essential to a song part or a solo instrument part, and karaoke performance information lacks information of such parts and cannot be searchedxe2x80x9d.
Further, with the rapid advancement of general computer techniques, particularly of acoustic analysis techniques, frequency identification techniques including the above-mentioned one disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 7-121556 have been put on the market as personal computer software.
Various musical piece search techniques have been disclosed as described above, but very few of them have been put to practical use heretofore. This is thought to signify that some hidden obstacles still exist despite the rapid advancement of technologies. Possible causes of the lack of success will be discussed briefly.
It is believed that a melody is memorized as a pattern of music information in the right brain (known as the xe2x80x9csensexe2x80x9d brain hemisphere). On the other hand, it is said that bibliographical information, such as titles of musical pieces, and information of related matters are memorized as linguistic information in the left brain (known as the xe2x80x9clogicxe2x80x9d brain hemisphere. Information on music, which is conceived as a single event, is therefore considered to be memorized in separate right and left brain hemispheres. This is thought to be a cause of the difficulty of not remembering a name while remembering a melody.
Therefore, the essential valuable content of music is held by the right brain, and information of the name, popularity, etc., held by the left brain is a secondary matter. This also supports the supposition that the reliability of matching between relating information provided from the left brain and information in the right brain is low. However, there is a possibility of a musical piece being permanently fixed in a person""s memory together with an unforgettable personally experienced event, with only a name of the musical piece forgotten. Only the title of the musical piece may be forgotten in such a case.
From bibliographical information alone, no right-brain information is produced about a melody. The probability that various sorts of information relating to a musical piece will be full of ambiguities is high. It can therefore be said that the functions of inference engines used today in natural language processing have not been used to full effectiveness in conventional systems. In particular, the methods using a certain information input such as a voice input are not making the best use of the techniques for natural language and melody recognition.
There is another problem relating to the field where a search system is used, i.e., in a karaoke environment. The characteristic atmosphere of karaoke, i.e., a space full of loud sounds, is influential. People have great difficulty in inputting correct information in such an environment.
Further, MIDI techniques themselves entail a problem of absence of melody most useful in ordinary MIDI information. This problem has already been pointed out in the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 6-202621 (xe2x80x9cMusical Piece Searching Apparatus Using Musical Performance Informationxe2x80x9d). However, it is uncertain how many users could use, as search input information, instrument formation information and information obtained by rhythmical sense, which are keys to the search, and how accurate the search will be.
In view of the above-described problems of the conventional art, it is an object of the present invention to provide a music search system easily operable by a user with an effect of searching for a musical piece with improved accuracy, a music search method for operating the system, and a recording medium for use with the system, contributing to the development of the music distribution industry.
To achieve this object, according to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a music search system comprising dialogical input means for enabling a plurality of musical piece search factors to be input successively, and means for presenting at least one candidate piece based on an effective input in the plurality of musical piece search factors input by the input means.
A user can efficiently supply the thus-arranged system with various sorts of information for searching for a musical piece, and can obtain an optimal search result by using a search method particularly suitable for search by each sort of information.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a music search system comprising input means for inputting information relating to a score of the musical piece as a musical piece search factor, reproducing means for reproducing the score information input by the input means according to the input operation of the input means, and means for presenting at least one candidate piece based on the score information input by the input means.
This arrangement ensures that a user can immediately confirm most ambiguous score information when using the score information as search information, thereby reducing the probability of the system making an unnecessary search.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a music search comprising input means for inputting at least one musical piece search factor, access means capable of accessing a data base in which a multiplicity of musical piece information items are stored, presentation means for presenting at least one candidate piece from the multiplicity of musical piece information items, and selecting means for selecting a presentation form for said presentation means from a plurality of forms.
This arrangement enables a user to recognize candidate musical pieces in various forms, from which the user will select, by various methods, one which he or she needs. Thus, the user can select any musical piece in an optimal way according to his or her preference.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a music search system comprising input means for inputting at least one musical piece search factor, access means capable of accessing a data base in which a multiplicity of musical piece information items are stored, and presentation means for presenting a plurality of candidate pieces from the multiplicity of musical piece information items based on the musical piece search factor input by the input means, wherein the presentation means evaluates degrees of matching of the plurality of candidate pieces to the musical piece search factor, and simultaneously displays information about results of the evaluation and character information relating to the candidate pieces.
The thus-arranged system can suggest, to a user, musical pieces from which one searched for by the user is probable to be found. Also, the system is substantially free from selecting failure.
According to still a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a music search system comprising input means for inputting at least one musical piece search factor, access means capable of accessing a data base in which a multiplicity of musical piece information items are stored, and presentation means for presenting at least one candidate piece from the multiplicity of musical piece information items based on the musical piece search factor input by said input means, wherein the presentation means displays a plurality of candidate pieces together with the musical piece search factor.
The thus-arranged system can suggest to a user redoing selection from the candidate pieces, thereby reducing user""s chances of making an unnecessary search.